Silence in the cupboard
by Chinky123
Summary: Hermione wakes up to find herself in a broom cupboard with none other then Draco Malfoy, the only problem is- they can't get out, and they can't speak.


A/N- Yup, I'm back! This was meant to be a one-shot, but I guess that it was becoming too long and I decided to split it up into 2. Not that I've written the second half yet. Yes, the Idea is slightly cliché, but I put my own twist on it.

* * *

Hermione regained consciousness by someone shaking her shoulder. Her eyes flickered half open, and then shut again, too tired to make an effort. Someone shook her more vigorously, but getting no response, suddenly slapped her.

At the force of the collision, Hermione gasped and shot up awake. "What the…" she trailed off. No sound had come out her mouth. "Huh?" she tried again, bringing her hand to her lips. Focusing, she now recognised the blond hair and pale face of the person that had rudely awakened her.

"Malfoy! What's going on?" She tried to say, but instead just mouthed the words mutely.

Malfoy glared at her and moved away; that is to say, he moved as far away as her could, which was not very far due to lack of space. Glancing around her surroundings, Hermione realised that she and Malfoy seemed to be in one of the many broom closets of Hogwarts.

It was dimly lit with a candle on the boarded up windowsill and contained only a single dusty old broomstick. Other than that and a cardboard box it was void of all items, instead, the surfaces were covered in a thick layer of dust. The door was on the opposite wall to the candle. Moving so that her back was against the wall, she looked to her nemesis; who was looking slightly hopeless and bewildered.

"Say something." Hermione mouthed, now anxious and confused.

"I can't" Draco mouthed back. He drew his thumb and index finger along his lips, symbolising a zip.

Hermione frowned, she tried to stand up from her position on the floor, but found the ceiling was too low to do so properly and ended up bumping her head. Malfoy smirked. Shuffling to the door, Hermione tried to turn the door knob in vain. Rolling his eyes, Malfoy pointed to himself, then the door and shook his head.

"No good, locked" he emphasised the last word by tapping the keyhole. Draco had tried to open it himself, upon waking to find himself in this predicament.

"What do we do? How did this happen?" Hermione said silently.

Draco shrugged and then pointed to a fallen broomstick twig on the ground. "Wand?" he was asking.

Hermione, after checking her robe pockets, shook her head. There was a moment of thought, none of them quite sure what to do. It was obvious this had been done on purpose and who ever had done it had taken their wands. _But why?_

Draco knelt down, an idea in his head. Upon the dust of the ground, he wrote _silencio? _with his finger.

After thinking for a moment, Hermione nodded. _Who? _she added underneath his word.

Draco pointed at her.

_ME?_ Hermione was outraged, and was about to retort with a hit, when Draco shook his head violently and held up two fingers.

"Potter and Weasley" he mouthed and gestured. Hermione was still angry; she shook her head and then pointed accusingly at him.

"Your friends are far more likely to pull such a stunt!" If it had been audible, her voice would have seethed with anger. She was thinking of the cruel Slytherins that did this sort of thing for fun.

Draco snorted and pointed his middle finger up, and then instantly regretted his action. It was like giving a red rag to a bull; Hermione, enraged, grabbed the nearby Broomstick and proceeded to whack Malfoy with it, raising a lot of the dust. Coughing mutely, Draco crossed his arms in front of his face in defence.

"STOP! PLEASE" he tried to shout.

Hermione sneezed herself, and delivered a few more hits before stopping and tossing the broom aside. Crossing her arms her turn away from him to the side in a huff, alas, she was not able to turn all the way around.

Confining Draco and Hermione in a small space was not a good idea, added to the fact that they could not speak and resorted to physical violence to get their points across. There wasn't any way out.

After a few minutes of avoiding eye contact and ignoring each other's presence entirely, both of them started to worry in their minds.

Hermione's worry showed plainly on her face. Would she ever get out of here? Surely Harry or Ron must have noticed that she was missing, but then again, Hermione estimated that it must have only been half an hour or so ( providing that she had not been unconscious for a long time), and it was not unusual for her to spend more than a few hours in the library.

After what seemed like eternity spent thinking, Hermione felt Draco's eyes burn a hole into her head. She turned around and Draco glanced away. Snapping her fingers to get his attention, Hermione questioned him with her eyes, tilting her head towards the door.

Sighing, Draco went to the door again, and banged on it. Repeatedly. The knocking echoed around the room, but no reply came from outside.

* * *

Neville Longbottom was peacefully walking on his way back from the greenhouses; humming a little tune. Looking down he noticed that his shoelace was untied. Knowing from experience that unravelled shoelaces hated him, he stopped to tie them.

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

Poor Neville almost fell in shock. That banging noise continued. Neville panicked, he didn't know what to do. Looking around, he saw nothing but dark empty corridor and a few portraits.

"w-wh-who's there?" He stuttered. "I-I warn y-you, I'm armed!" He said, bringing out his wand with a shaky hand. "Show yourself!" he said with a brave façade.

The banging noise stopped after a few minutes. Neville looked around nervously, but just when Neville was relaxing again, he was greeted with another bout of bangs; the new bangs were quieter, but more rapid.

"Peeves! Is that you?" Neville said in a barely audible whisper. But the poltergeist was not to be seen. He thought of all the possible scenarios, but all of them seemed unlikely. "Hello? Anyone there?" He said louder.

Regaining his footing, Neville finally decided that it was probably a ghost, as a student in trouble would have spoken up by now. Still unsure, he hurried away from the noise. After a while, the bangs stopped completely.

* * *

After a few minutes, even Hermione gave up. She had taken over from Malfoy when his hand had gotten too tired.

_Damn it, I was sure I heard someone outside._

They had both heard the sound of someone's murmured voice outside in the corridor. Why no one had come to check to see what the banging was about was ridiculous. Well, they had reached a dead end, no better of then before and considerably dustier.

Time went by; Draco could only measure how much by looking at the shrinking candle. The few streaks of light that came in through the cracks in the boarded up window started to disappear as the day grew darker. It was quite unbearable for him to be in close quarters with a mudblood and not being able to do ANYTHING about it or to solve it.

The candle dimmed out. They were left in darkness, limiting all communication between them. As her eyes adjusted to the lack of light, Hermione noticed that Malfoy had curled up into a tight ball against the wall. She wanted to do the same; as it was getting colder as night approached. There was nothing much to do other than await rescue, whenever it came, _if_ it came…

_Think positive Hermione! What good will worry do? But still…If they were never found, what if they were here for days on end? STOP IT!_

She looked at Malfoy again, he hadn't moved, maybe he was sleep. Sleep would be a good idea right now. Squeezing her eyes shut, she tried her best to fall asleep. _Have sweet dreams_.

In actual fact, Draco wasn't asleep; he was fully conscious and terrified. Not many people knew that it was one of his deepest fears, not the claustrophobia exactly, and not the darkness either… But this was a combination of a lot of things; the feeling of hopelessness, the eerie silence in the confined space, all alone… There _was_ someone there, but was having a silent enemy any more reassuring? And the fear of death, combining everything, far-fetched, but entirely possible. He could die in here.

Something touched her hand. For a second time, Hermione jerked awake. Correction, _someone_ touched her hand; and was now squeezing it tightly.

"Malfoy!" she said, forgetting that she couldn't make any noise. Draco was now sitting next to her, clutching on as if her hand was his lifeline. It took Hermione a few seconds for Hermione to get over her shock.

_Please don't pull away…_ Draco thought desperately.

Hermione gulped, not sure what to do, Draco wasn't moving apart from his hand around hers. It was early dawn now, some light was shining in. Looking at his face, she saw tears glisten at his eyes. _Crying, Draco Malfoy is actually crying._

Draco noticed that Hermione hadn't made any attempt to release his hand, but had a questioning look on her face. There was an awkward pause, none of them doing anything. Taking a leap of faith and a deep breath, she lifted Draco's hand in her own and then encased it with her other hand gently. Draco's eyes grew wide in disbelief as she petted his hand in reassuring movements.

_It will be okay…Everything will turn out all right. _Hermione hoped her thoughts reached him… through some form of telepathy, maybe?

Draco's hand relaxed a bit in her own, as he become comfortable with the idea of them touching. Hermione's stomach growled loudly. They missed Dinner the night before, and were probably going to miss breakfast too. Placing her free hand on her stomach, she notified Draco that she was hungry.

Draco snorted. _No kidding_. He was hungry too.

Draco wasn't sure how long they had been like this, just holding hands mutely; but his neck was stiff and head ached terribly. At some point they let go without realising.

As soon as it was light enough they started communicating through writing in the dust again. Out of boredom, the two played a game of hangman in the dust, with difficulty obviously, but after a while even that grew out of its appeal.

* * *

It started raining noisily outside. _Perfect, _Draco thought, _just what we needed to make this situation better, the stupid weather echoing our mood._

Some raindrops leaking in through the gaps in the boards. Not enough to catch and drink, but still getting them slightly wet. Pulling his wet hand through his hair, he smoothed down the ruffles of bed head. Looking over to Hermione, he smiled; she had an even worse case of bed head. Draco gestured to her hair, and ruffled it up a bit more playfully. Hermione swotted his arm away, turned red with embarrassment, and then, smiled, fixing her hair as much as she could.

She was now getting desperate now, although she tried not to show it in front of Draco. It was probably almost a day since they found themselves trapped, why had someone not had the common sense to spell a locator charm? Or why didn't Harry use the marauder's map?

_Damn you Hogwarts! Always changing, moving, concealing! Why can't you just let us out?_

She was going to be driven mad in here, Draco could tell. That would be quite an amusing thing to watch, if he wasn't driven mad himself. He watched how here fists clenched as she became enraged. Watching and waiting, was the extent of his activity now. Draco used the time to study Hermione properly; so far he only had a vague idea of what she looked like, having been disgusted at the sight of her usually. She was slightly pale now, and her bushier then before. Hermione had taken her outer robes off and used it more as a blanket. There was nothing special about her looks, average at most, but it was her striking eyes that caught his attention; even now they were filled with passion and determination, never giving up hope in the most desperate of situations. Her personality, in Draco's opinion, was the most beautiful thing about her, it outshone everybody's. What was the use of being pretty, when you were ugly inside?

The more Draco thought about it, the more attracted he was to the petite girl sharing the cupboard with him. She wasn't perfect, there was that huge vengeful streak in her nature, but then, who is perfect? Love wasn't finding a perfect person; it was about seeing an imperfect person perfectly.

_Wait, LOVE? Where the hell did that come from? I'm not in love with Granger, far from it!_

Draco shook his head, trying to shake the inappropriate thoughts from his head. _I really must be turning mad! _When Hermione looked at him inquisitively, he was quick to writing _Headache, not feeling well_ on the wall. It was true to a certain extent.

Hermione's face flashed with concern, crawling over, she placed a cool hand against his forehead. It was burning up! "Fever!" she mouthed. Draco nodded glumly, shaking off her hand and testing with his own. Hermione looked around the room. _What on Earth do I do? There's no medication, do I work on cooling him down or bundle him up further? _Spying her discarded robe in the corner, she fetched it. _Should I wet it and hold it to his forehead? _

Holding the robe against the window, she thanked Merlin for the rain. Draco saw what she was doing and rejected the idea. "I'm fine".

Hermione gave him a pointed stare, and then folded the damp robe into a rectangle to give to him. Sighing, he slapped it to his face; Hermione was satisfied, but still worried about his condition.

_There's not much we can do now, Malfoy. Just wait and pray._

Draco hadn't realised how hot and bothered he was until now. The robe smelt delectably _Grangerish_; vanilla shampoo, parchment and the library; something he almost always associated with Hermione. _Granger must be cold now, it's still raining outside but she's only got her school shirt and blouse on._

Amongst the fear, confusion and worry, illness was added to the growing list. They were sick and tired of waiting for something that may never come.

* * *

Harry and Ron were losing sleep now, pacing back and forth in the Gryffindor common room checking the clock every few minutes. It was 10 o'clock, they had skipped breakfast and first period was about to start. Hermione had been gone all night.

"Where the fuck is she?" Ron said angrily. "It's never been this late, ever!"

"I know, Ron, I know!" said Harry worriedly. He checked the clock again.

"Maybe we _should_ go to McGonagall now…" suggested Ron.

"And then what? If it turns out Hermione sneaked out of Hogwarts on purpose, she wouldn't be very happy that we snitched on her."

"Harry, this is Hermione we're talking about, when has she ever been the one to disobey the rules?"

Harry raised his eyebrow "well, actually, a lot of times. She's been hesitant, but still went along with it."

Ron snorted and countered "but then why would she go without telling us?" Harry was at a loss with that one.

"Well… she could be… you know… _with a boy…_ and not want to tell us?" even as he said it, Harry prayed that this wasn't the case. Ron's ears turned pink at the tips, Harry looked away again. Simultaneously, Harry and Ron both looked at the clock and groaned in frustration.

* * *

To be continued…

Please review if you enjoyed it.


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